The Board of Patent
Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) will be holding its First Annual Board
Conference on April 7, 2010 in Alexandria, VA.  The conference will include presentations on the following
topics:

• State of the
Board — Chief Judge Michael Fleming

• A View Behind the
Curtain — Vice Chief Judge James Moore, Vice Chief Judge Allen MacDonald,
Judge Ken Hairston, and Judge Murriel Crawford

• Practice
Tips:  Top Ten Mistakes (panel
discussion) — Judge Linda Horner (moderator), Gary Harkcom of Greenblum &
Bernstein, P.L.C., Chief Judge Michael Fleming, Judge Jack Jeffery, and Judge
Sally Lane

• Winning Your
Non-Obviousness Case at the Board — Michael Messinger of Sterne, Kessler,
Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. and Charles Van Horn of Finnegan, Henderson,
Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP

• Luncheon Speaker
— Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the
United States Patent & Trademark Office, David Kappos

• Inter Partes Reexam (panel discussion)
— Stephen Kunin of Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P.
(moderator), Brad Pedersen of Patterson, Thuente, Skaar & Christensen,
P.A., Todd Baker of Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P.,
and Gregory Morse of the USPTO Central Reexam Unit

• Panel with
Federal Circuit Judges:  Role of
the Board (panel discussion) — Teresa Rea of Crowell & Moring LLP
(moderator), Chief Circuit Judge Paul Michel of the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, Circuit Judge Randal Rader of the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, and Chief Judge Michael Fleming of the BPAI

The conference
agenda can be found here.

The conference will
be held in the Madison Auditorium at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 600
Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA.  The
registration fee for the conference is $100.  Those interested in registering for the conference can do so
here; the registration
deadline is March 30, 2010.